After a good win on the road vs Impact we are back at BMO playing another side above us in the table in NYRB. With us playing our next three games at home it is important if we want to make the playoffs to collect 7 out 9 from the three games.
Should be able to put a strong lineup out there and see how Gallardo fits in with the team and adjusts to the league
It's so tightly packed, if we did take six or seven points on this home stand, we would jump from squeaking into the playoffs to potentially having a home playoff date.
A nice result where the team was significantly outchanced but managed to outscore the opponent for the win. What I'm really liking is that we've only given up one goal in our last two games. While acknowledging some excellent goal keeping contributed (not just defending) this is a big turn around. Hopefully its the start of a long term trend.
We didn't play all that well. A moment of madness by Lawrence led to Pozuelo's penalty and then a complete mixup between keeper and defender led to Morgan's goal. NYRB should be disappointed they didn't get more from the game as they looked like they had more energy than we did.
To offer another perspective: The penalty happened because the defender expected a cross and Laryea read that perfectly and stepped toward the goal line, exploiting the space beautifully and caught the defender slow to respond. A poor challenge because he was late. If he didn't challenge, Laryea would have delivered a cross from a very dangerous position or maybe even cut inside for a shot. It was a well-earned penalty. How many times have we seen TFC play well but lose because of a couple of defensive mistakes? How many times have we seen TFC concede the opening goal and then have to chase the game, appear to play well but still end up losing? This looked like every game on our losing streak but the other way around. NYRB generated some chances but this game never felt in doubt to me. A solid three points. And I hope Bradley is buying Westberg a nice steak dinner for bailing him out after that horrendous giveaway right in front of his own goal.
I agree after the first 30 minutes I thought NYRB really took it to us and controlled the play while we didn't give away too many clear cut chances (a lot of long shots) but worrying to me was how poor we were defending corners. Despite the not great performance the result was really important going forward with Houston and Cinni coming up we should be looking at collecting maximum points and getting in the mix with the top of the east.
Actually I just watched a replay and I may be overstating the case on Laryea. I had thought he faked a cross and then beat the defender when at the game, on the replay I just saw it looks like he just gets tackled immediately as he was going to cross the ball. That fits more with a simple moment of madness from the defender leading to the penalty as adrenaline11 said. Oops, oh well. I'll still stick with the rest of my post being true.
Regardless Laryea is quick enough in their box that he is drawing the defenders, I've seen him go down so many times in the box and this is the first time they've given a call his way. I think he is out performing Auro at this point and should be given a few more starts in the upcoming games